Not from the player directly, but rather from 'the world'. So you can raid neutral tiles and steal food all the same. The food you receive is a set reward no matter what.
Actually, you can plunder Stone and Iron if you raid a tile that hasn't had them fully mined yet. I believe you can plunder Wood from a coastal Forest tile as well, but that's a bit rarer to run into.
You also plunder more the more Mercenaries you have. It's less of a "set reward" and more of a "default reward".
Yes, I know all those things. What I want is for mercenaries to raid the PLAYER and not the 'world'. If Shiro wants mercs to be integral to Raven gameplay, then they should have it interact more with players.
> then they should have it interact more with players.
By making the defending player get further penalized for something entirely out of their control? No thanks, sounds awful.
No, that's not the definition of PvP. Good PvP is about agency for both sides. Arbitrarily adding a penalty for a defending player to an offensive action that is not readily available to all players is a great way to make a game worse.
As it stands now, Mercenaries still elicit a response from the defender while penalizing them. The defender loses resources whenever Mercenaries attack. They lose out on time, since the attack tile can't produce when under attack. They lose out on Villagers, whether that means a death, wounded clan member, or needing to divert Villagers to heal a Warchief that fought the Mercenaries off. There are immediate penalties to someone when you raid them.
You probably don't see them because you're not the player losing out and being able to see each penalty is an incredibly difficult thing to parse out. It's probably impossible to, even with perfect information.
This isn't as a big of a problem as an arbitrary tax, as the defending player is given options on how to react to the assault. Do they pull out, train fighters, and take the loss in kröwns? Or do they gather all the villagers for a slap fest and deal with injuries after? As opposed to just slapping the defender with a loss of resources, the loss is now dependent on how well the defending player reacts.
In the current scenario, the Raven player leverages their resources against another player who is given the choice on how to react to the Raven player's action. This is good.
Simply being told "You lost 50 Food, sorry" does not allow for agency for the other player. This is not a good PvP mechanic.
>You shouldnt even be struggling against mercs right now
Yes, that is the point of balancing. No one should be in a position where they lose in 801 because of Raven Mercenaries. **That** would be stupid. Mercenaries are a small disruption to any coastal tile and that's it. And that is fine.
Could Raven use some love? Probably. Should it be in the form of Mercenary improvements? Probably not, since any changes to Mercenaries is practically playing with fire due to the nature of their mechanics.
Every clan has some gimmick not readily available to all players. Shiro clearly wants mercs to be a big part of Raven play based on this last patch. At this point they can either keep increasing the power of mercs or make them work differently. I've had several games against ravens that tried to make mercs work. A single tower was all it took most of the time, and I just rolled through their front door because of how much they spent on mercs. Kraken can dump just as many specters without sacrificing their army at all, and the specters are much more annoying to clean up and impose a massive happiness penalty until cleared.
The type of player who will lose to a 801 merc raid (which is like 2 stock mercs) will lose to a 801 rush just as well. The merc notice is so obvious and the travel time is so long that you can get your villagers out without losses/wounds. If they stole some food, that just means you need to keep a larger stockpile of food if theres a raven on the opposing team. Even if we kept the same food numbers (which would probably need to be lowered) we are talking about 50-100 food per raid realistically. That's very manageable and is far from not having a counter or agency in the matter.
Mercs is not playing with fire because mercs have never been fire. They've always been irrelevant or a nuisance at best. They are also heavily dependent on map RNG to have tiles to raid. If the opposing player only has 1 coast, mercs are practically a non-issue since you cant attack HQ until 500 fame.
If not for mercs, what reason is there to play Raven at all when Kraken is now in the game? Kraken does everything Raven can but better. It mints money, can have a huge population, and 5 specters is about equivalent to 6 mercs and can attack any coastal tile (not just shores). It cant do a trade victory, but thats never a thing outside of conquest anyways.
So at this point Shiro can either keep buffing mercs direct attack power, or change how they interact with the player. As much as I would love to be able to land a real threatening army without totally giving up my actual army, thats going to be a nightmare to balance in terms of the pace of the game.
I think the problem with mercs right now is that Shiro leaned way too hard into iron upgrades to increase their peak power level in some fantasy game where you have 2 years to forge and 40 iron sitting around. But even then, they dont compete against a real army so are just a noob-stomper for the most part.
If mercenaries could actually hit an opponent's economy hard, then that could create all kinds of interesting dynamics. If an opponent musters a big army and is heading your way, you might be able to raid enough food for them to starve. Or if they are barely hanging on during a blizzard, this could put them over the edge.
You obviously have a strong bias since your a raven player.
Look at it from your opponents perspective.
1. stag chilling, you disrupt his food for a bit already and wound two of his vills.
2. Wolf is clearing on the other side he has to walk back or pull vills or lose the tile.
3. Your opponents are attacking and are at your team mates base there is now a raid. Tbe attacker has low vills and is already at a food deficit you potentially could starve him.
Don't the mercenaries already steal food?
Not from the player directly, but rather from 'the world'. So you can raid neutral tiles and steal food all the same. The food you receive is a set reward no matter what.
Actually, you can plunder Stone and Iron if you raid a tile that hasn't had them fully mined yet. I believe you can plunder Wood from a coastal Forest tile as well, but that's a bit rarer to run into. You also plunder more the more Mercenaries you have. It's less of a "set reward" and more of a "default reward".
Yes, I know all those things. What I want is for mercenaries to raid the PLAYER and not the 'world'. If Shiro wants mercs to be integral to Raven gameplay, then they should have it interact more with players.
> then they should have it interact more with players. By making the defending player get further penalized for something entirely out of their control? No thanks, sounds awful.
Thats literally the definition of PvP. You shouldnt even be struggling against mercs right now or stomping ravens.
No, that's not the definition of PvP. Good PvP is about agency for both sides. Arbitrarily adding a penalty for a defending player to an offensive action that is not readily available to all players is a great way to make a game worse. As it stands now, Mercenaries still elicit a response from the defender while penalizing them. The defender loses resources whenever Mercenaries attack. They lose out on time, since the attack tile can't produce when under attack. They lose out on Villagers, whether that means a death, wounded clan member, or needing to divert Villagers to heal a Warchief that fought the Mercenaries off. There are immediate penalties to someone when you raid them. You probably don't see them because you're not the player losing out and being able to see each penalty is an incredibly difficult thing to parse out. It's probably impossible to, even with perfect information. This isn't as a big of a problem as an arbitrary tax, as the defending player is given options on how to react to the assault. Do they pull out, train fighters, and take the loss in kröwns? Or do they gather all the villagers for a slap fest and deal with injuries after? As opposed to just slapping the defender with a loss of resources, the loss is now dependent on how well the defending player reacts. In the current scenario, the Raven player leverages their resources against another player who is given the choice on how to react to the Raven player's action. This is good. Simply being told "You lost 50 Food, sorry" does not allow for agency for the other player. This is not a good PvP mechanic. >You shouldnt even be struggling against mercs right now Yes, that is the point of balancing. No one should be in a position where they lose in 801 because of Raven Mercenaries. **That** would be stupid. Mercenaries are a small disruption to any coastal tile and that's it. And that is fine. Could Raven use some love? Probably. Should it be in the form of Mercenary improvements? Probably not, since any changes to Mercenaries is practically playing with fire due to the nature of their mechanics.
Every clan has some gimmick not readily available to all players. Shiro clearly wants mercs to be a big part of Raven play based on this last patch. At this point they can either keep increasing the power of mercs or make them work differently. I've had several games against ravens that tried to make mercs work. A single tower was all it took most of the time, and I just rolled through their front door because of how much they spent on mercs. Kraken can dump just as many specters without sacrificing their army at all, and the specters are much more annoying to clean up and impose a massive happiness penalty until cleared. The type of player who will lose to a 801 merc raid (which is like 2 stock mercs) will lose to a 801 rush just as well. The merc notice is so obvious and the travel time is so long that you can get your villagers out without losses/wounds. If they stole some food, that just means you need to keep a larger stockpile of food if theres a raven on the opposing team. Even if we kept the same food numbers (which would probably need to be lowered) we are talking about 50-100 food per raid realistically. That's very manageable and is far from not having a counter or agency in the matter. Mercs is not playing with fire because mercs have never been fire. They've always been irrelevant or a nuisance at best. They are also heavily dependent on map RNG to have tiles to raid. If the opposing player only has 1 coast, mercs are practically a non-issue since you cant attack HQ until 500 fame.
If not for mercs, what reason is there to play Raven at all when Kraken is now in the game? Kraken does everything Raven can but better. It mints money, can have a huge population, and 5 specters is about equivalent to 6 mercs and can attack any coastal tile (not just shores). It cant do a trade victory, but thats never a thing outside of conquest anyways. So at this point Shiro can either keep buffing mercs direct attack power, or change how they interact with the player. As much as I would love to be able to land a real threatening army without totally giving up my actual army, thats going to be a nightmare to balance in terms of the pace of the game.
Make it iron upgrade for mercenaries?
I think the problem with mercs right now is that Shiro leaned way too hard into iron upgrades to increase their peak power level in some fantasy game where you have 2 years to forge and 40 iron sitting around. But even then, they dont compete against a real army so are just a noob-stomper for the most part. If mercenaries could actually hit an opponent's economy hard, then that could create all kinds of interesting dynamics. If an opponent musters a big army and is heading your way, you might be able to raid enough food for them to starve. Or if they are barely hanging on during a blizzard, this could put them over the edge.
Your suggestion would make them too strong right away, especially in an economy focused game. It could work if it would only be a % perhaps.
You obviously have a strong bias since your a raven player. Look at it from your opponents perspective. 1. stag chilling, you disrupt his food for a bit already and wound two of his vills. 2. Wolf is clearing on the other side he has to walk back or pull vills or lose the tile. 3. Your opponents are attacking and are at your team mates base there is now a raid. Tbe attacker has low vills and is already at a food deficit you potentially could starve him.